Sponsors
The bill broadens grant eligibility to strengthen local meat and poultry processing, supply-chain resilience, and food safety—benefiting rural communities and consumers—but risks diverting funds from other agricultural needs, enabling larger processors to capture benefits, and perpetuating federal spending without added oversight.
Taxpayers and consumers may face fewer meat and poultry supply disruptions because expanded grant eligibility strengthens local processing capacity, improving food supply chain resilience and helping stabilize prices.
Rural communities and small meat and poultry processors can use program grants to upgrade facilities and expand local processing capacity, keeping more economic activity and jobs in local areas.
Farmers, agricultural workers, and small processors can invest in food safety and inspection-related infrastructure through the program, which can reduce foodborne illness risks and improve public health outcomes.
Small producers and independent processors may lose out because larger meat and poultry processors could capture grants, concentrating benefits and undermining equity goals.
Rural communities and other agricultural sectors could see fewer resources for non-meat resilience projects because funds expanded to meat and poultry uses may divert investment away from produce, distribution, or other needs.
Taxpayers may face continued federal spending without additional oversight because maintaining the program "in the same manner" could perpetuate existing administrative issues and accountability gaps.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Allows existing Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure program recipients to use funds for meat and poultry-related activities while keeping program administration unchanged.
Introduced February 17, 2026 by Sharice Davids · Last progress February 17, 2026
Directs the Secretary of Agriculture to keep running the existing Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure program exactly as it is administered on the date of enactment, while explicitly allowing program recipients to use awarded funds for activities related to meat and poultry products beginning on the date of enactment. The change does not create new funding or change how the program is run except to broaden eligible uses. The immediate effect is to broaden who can use existing program grants and loans to include meat and poultry processing and related infrastructure projects — a likely benefit for small and mid-sized processors, livestock producers, and communities dependent on meat and poultry supply chains.